New Mechanical Engineering Faculty: Douglas Carter

Douglas Carter will join the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor in August 2026!

Carter joins the department as an expert in turbulent flows and unsteady aerodynamics. His research encompasses all aspects of turbulent flows, from the “low” speeds typical of engineering and commercial aviation applications to “high” speeds found in challenging scenarios like atmospheric re-entry of vehicles returning to the planet from space. His lab, the Experimental Turbulent Flows Lab (ETFL), develops and utilizes the latest in measurement diagnostic technologies to address state-of-the-art challenges from fundamental turbulence dynamics to applied aerothermodynamics. 

“I couldn’t be more excited for the capabilities we are going to develop at UW-Madison, particularly in high-speed flows. There are so many aspects of turbulence in high-speed aerodynamics we still don’t fully understand and the facilities we are building will address those challenges head-on,” shared Carter.

Carter earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2019 and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Southampton (2019-2022) and Sandia National Laboratories (2022-2024). He joins UW-Madison after two years as an Assistant Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a recipient of the 2026 Young Investigator Program award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in high-speed flows for his project titled A Neural-Optical Flow Approach for Measuring 3D Supersonic Turbulent Shock-Boundary-Layer Interactions.